


Legoland

by somehowunbroken



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Community: longfic_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-25 19:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas, and on your sixth wriggling day, you turn into a grub’s plastic building toy. [Fusion with the Lego Batman games.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legoland

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for longfic_bingo on LJ. The prompt I used was "crossover/fusion: video game." I was tossing this idea around with ariadne83 when the prompt list came out, mostly joking, but then the square popped up... I couldn't resist. This is cracky and fairly ridiculous, but it was fun to write!
> 
> Thanks to ariadne83 for beta work.
> 
> Rating is for video game violence and swearing.

The thing about SGRUB is that it is exactly nothing like what any of you were expecting.

we’re goiing two be challenged, Sollux tells you. iit’2 goiing two be iin2ane, kk.

gOnNa Be FuCkInG aMaZiNg, My BrOtHeR, Gamzee says cheerily. sTrAiGhT uP oFf ThE hOoK iS wHaT i'M sAyInG. yOu FeEl Me?

I’M FEELING SOMETHING, THAT’S FOR SURE, you snap back. IT’S PROBABLY INDIGESTION, THOUGH. OR THE FEELING THAT YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR SHITTING MIND.

hOnK, mOtHeRfUcKeR! is the only thing Gamzee says in reply. Sometimes you wonder how you got stuck with Sopor-For-Brains Makara, but then again, he gives an awesome shooshpap.

And, okay, you’re so pale for the moron that you might actually fade away. Details.

Eridan tells you it’s going to be “vvery interesting”. Vriska thinks it’s going to “a8solutely rock!!!!!!!!” Aradia says she’s heard that it’s “s0mething 0f a mystery,” and Feferi doesn’t think you should worry about it at all.

wait and sea! is her advice. half of the adventure is in finding the tuna the game as you go!

You fucking hate figuring shit out as you go. You’re spectacularly good at it, though. You get a lot of practice.

You stare at the install disc for a while before putting it into your husktop. The logo is brighter than you thought it would be, and it looks like it might have been designed by a two-sweep-old wriggler with some chalk and no ruler.

GC: WOW K4RK4T 1 LOV3 TH3 SGRUB LOGO  
CG: WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED.  
GC: H3H3H3H3

The interface is really weird. You mistakenly put the client disc in first, so Terezi has access to your hive. She drops things all over the place without any regard for rhyme or reason, and the uses of said things are a mystery to you.

“Flight Suit,” you read off of the base of something that’s sitting in the nutrition block. The base has a drawing of your symbol, and it’s glowing bright red and projecting a picture of a shirt with wings on it in midair. “Terezi, what the fuck is this?”

GC: NO 1D34, K4RKL3S  
GC: YOU’R3 TH3 PL4Y3R  
GC: F1GUR3 1T OUT!

Fucking excellent. It’s a good thing you’re sort-of-kind-of flushed for Terezi, or you’d wring her neck for being spectacularly unhelpful.

“Thanks,” you snarl. You tentatively stick your hand into the projection of the shirt. The light bends around your hand somehow, so it looks like you’re just standing there with your hand through a shirt. “This is – God, I fucking hate this game already. Let’s cancel the game.”

GC: NO W4Y  
GC: 1 W4NT TO PL4Y  
GC: SUCK 1T UP 4ND D34L W1TH 1T!

“Pyrope,” you sigh, but there’s really nothing else to say.

You find three more of the shirt projectors around your hive – one tagged “Jump Suit,” another called “Strength Suit,” and one that you really hope you don’t have to use, which is labeled “Blood Suit.”

GC: HUH  
GC: TH1S 1S 1NT3R3ST1NG  
GC: 1 DON’T H4VE TH4T ON3

“Which one?” you ask with a frown.

GC: BLOOD SU1T  
GC: 1 H4V3 TH3 OTH3R THR33  
GC: BUT MY FOURTH ON3 1S C4LL3D  
GC: M1ND SU1T

“Well,” you say, “that sounds like a load of bullshit.”

GC: S4YS THE TROLL WHO W1LL H4V3 TO W34R “BLOOD SU1T”

“Shut your face,” you retort. Not your strongest comeback, but it’ll do.

Terezi puts a few more things in your hive before logging out, probably to poke at the shit that Gamzee has been dropping in her hive. You hope that someone somewhere gets a picture of her trying to lick one of the shirt holograms.

At least, you consider, Terezi dropped most of the big things in the same general area. Gamzee probably put shit wherever it looked the most mirthful, or something equally insane. You consider your new alchemiter, totem lathe, and cruxtruder with the suspicion they deserve before they’re deciding that they’re probably safe, and then you start fucking around with them.

You have never been more wrong in your life. Past you was a stupid jackass, and you hate him with a burning passion.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and on your sixth wriggling day, you turn into a grub’s plastic building toy.

-0-

There’s another plastic building toy approaching you. It’s smaller than you are, which is fucking saying something, and it’s black from toe to-

It doesn’t have horns.

It doesn’t have any fucking _horns_.

“Terezi,” you say, panicked, before you remember that hey, she can’t hear you right now. You pull your sickle from your belt and fall into the blockiest fighting stance you’re ever had the misfortune to behold. Your grip on your sickle is awkward at best; your claws have all melded together into a weird half-circle shape, and even though your sickle snaps into place perfectly, you’re not used to gripping it like this.

“Okay, bring it,” you snarl at the little black thing, raising your sickle arm. It smiles at you, which is weird because its face shouldn’t be able to move. You had a set of these plastic building toys as a wriggler. They are, as you’ve already noted, made out of fucking plastic, and are therefore fixed into one position.

You hate this game so fucking much.

You’re prepared for the impact when the little thing slams into your sickle. What you’re not prepared for is the way your new body reacts: your right arm flies off with a popping sound, and you and the thing both turn and watch it arc backwards and land behind you, sickle still firmly clenched in that hand.

You look down at where your arm should be, already panicking.

“What the _fuck_ ,” you spit. “Why am I not bleeding?”

GC: 1 F1GUR3D YOU WOULD B3 R34LLY H4PPY 4BOUT TH4T K4RK4T  
GC: WH4T W1TH YOUR DOOM3D OBS3SS1ON W1TH H1D1NG YOUR BLOOD COLOR

“Can it with the doom shit,” you snap. “You are not Sollux. Terezi, what the fuck, what the _fuck_ is going on?”

GC: B34TS M3  
GC: 1 W4S GO1NG TO 4SK YOU TH4T  
GC: BUT 1T LOOKS L1K3 YOU 4R3 BUSY R1GHT NOW

“Busy with what?” you ask, but then the little black thing smacks you in the face.

You glare down at it. It glares right back at you before raising its hand threateningly.

“Oh my fucking god,” you groan. You haul back and punch it in the head, which goes flying off much like your arm had.

The thing’s body explodes into build grist.

You stare at it for a moment before reaching down and picking the build grist up.

“I am not going to lie to you, Terezi,” you say as calmly as you can manage while collecting the grist one-handed. As soon as you touch a piece it disappears with a clinking sound. “I would be so much less freaked out right now if you were staring at a bleeding wound on my body.”

GC: 1 H4V3 TO S4Y K4RK4T  
GC: TH4T WH1L3 TH4T WOULD M4K3 M3 H4PPY ON MOST D4YS  
GC: 1T’S NOT DO1NG MUCH FOR M3 R1GHT NOW

“Yeah,” you mutter. “I kind of figured it wouldn’t.”

GC: Y34H W3LL 1 TH1NK  
GC: OH MY GOD K4RK4T

“At the risk of repeating myself,” you say, staring down at your right arm, which just reappeared out of nowhere, “what the actual fuck.”

Your arm shimmers once in response, and your sickle pops itself neatly back into a loop on your belt.

-0-

As it turns out, Jump Suit, Strength Suit, and Flight Suit do exactly what they sound like – you can step onto their pads and be changed into a suit that somehow grants you the ability to jump ridiculous distances, lift things that are easily fifteen times your own weight, and fly. Literally, actually fly, complete with a set of delicate-looking wings that are actually frighteningly good at letting you zoom around the sky. You wish that the shirt didn’t have pastel wings tattooed on the chest, but honestly, you’ve seen worse.

Take, for example, Blood Suit.

You’re hesitant to try it out at first, especially after realizing that all of the other suits have functions that correlate to their names. Terezi isn’t wrong; you’re a little obsessed with hiding your blood color. You’re not wrong either, though. If anyone find out about your blood, it’s game over in more ways than one.

So yeah, maybe you avoid the Blood Suit like it’s going to give you the plague. It doesn’t help that the little symbol on the front is a dripping line of crimson.

Terezi, on the other hand, loves her Mind Suit. “It’s like I can see things,” she says, tracing the weird pointy circle symbol on her shirt. “Not like see-see, but know-see.”

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense,” you point out.

“Decisions,” she frowns. “I can tell you about different paths. Choices.”

You scowl. “So am I going to choose to listen to the rest of this conversation, or…”

“Shut up,” she groans, smacking your arm. “Real decisions, ones where the outcome isn’t completely obvious.”

“You make no shitting sense,” you mutter.

The thing is, though, that everyone has the first three suits. Everyone can fly and jump and perform ridiculous feats of strength, but there are no two trolls in your party with the same fourth suit. Terezi has Mind and claims that she can figure out decisions while she’s wearing it; Kanaya has Space and can grow and shrink and move things while she’s wearing her special shirt. Sollux's Doom Suit seems to give him the ability to make his normal grim predictions with a lot more accuracy.

Your first experience with Blood Suit comes shortly before your encounter with the first boss of the Land of Pulse and Haze. Terezi points out that you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, and that the specialized suits seem to give each player a leg up. You cautiously agree and step into your suit. You don’t notice anything different –no sudden knowledge that you weren’t privy to before, no ability to warp space or time or air. It doesn’t reveal your blood color, though, so you shrug and keep it on.

When you meet Jack Noir, the first thing he does is charge at you. You’re used to it; you’re expecting it. You turn to face him as he approaches, calling your sickle to your hand, and-

-he stops before he hits you.

“Knight,” he growls. You jerk back; to this point, the imps have made chirps and squeaks and weird random syllables that sound more like a grub trying to speak than proper Alternian. This guy, though, is definitely speaking actual words. “What are you doing here?”

“What?” you snarl. “What are you, Super Imp? I don’t – God, this _fucking game_.”

He snorts and jabs out with his dagger. You lean back, thankful for the first time that your new plastic building toy legs bend equally well in both directions. His arm sails harmlessly over your torso, and you straighten up as he lets his arm drop back to his side.

“I’ll ask you again,” he says. “What are you doing here? What’s your purpose?”

“To win this fucking game,” you tell him, throwing your hands in the air. You’re thankful, and _not_ for the first time, that your hand stays clasped around your sickle. “To kill the Black King and Queen. To turn back into an actual troll so I’m not stuck like this for the rest of my life, which will apparently be forever if I stay in here, since I can’t actually die.”

He narrows his eyes at you and nods once. “I think we can work something out, you and me.”

-0-

“What the fuck,” you yell, and Eridan flinches. Well, his head bobs down and pops back up. You’re interpreting. “Listen to me, nooksniffer, you have to-”

“Kar,” he interrupts. “Kar, I already did this side quest. I can help you with the plantin'.”

“The what,” you say flatly.

“Plantin',” he repeats, gesturing to the bag of seeds that you’re somehow holding, even though it has a tiny flat edge and you have cup hands. “You gotta grow the land kelp for the Agricultural Collector. If you bring him a big bucket a’ the stuff, he’ll give you a bunch a' boonbucks.”

“Planting,” Your life is a pile of shit. This is just the latest in a long line of tinier shitty things that have made it this way.

Eridan nods eagerly. “Come on, Kar, lemme show you how to do it.”

As you watch, Eridan takes the seed packet from your hand and walks to a suspicious lump of dirt. He shakes it three times, and sure enough, three glowing green dots appear on the dirt. Eridan carefully steps on each one, and they disappear into the ground.

“Now we gotta water them,” he says, looking around. “Do you see the waterin' can?”

“The what,” you repeat dumbly.

“Never mind, I found it,” he says, heading for a blocky thing with a handle and a spout. “Now we gotta find the water source.”

Fuck everything, you decide as you follow Eridan around the lawn ring. Fuck everything _so much_.

-0-

The thing is, you’re pretty sure that if you win the game, you’ll be returned to normal. You’ll be a troll again, a proper troll with hands that have claws and hair that moves when a breeze comes through. You’re reasonably sure of this, and the more you talk to the others, the more likely it seems.

AA: it sounds reasonable!  
TA: iit 2ound2 liike iit’2 worth a 2hot. ii don’t want two be 2tuck liike thii2 forever.  
CG: OKAY, GOOD. I MEAN, IT’S NOT LIKE WE WERE GOING TO FORFEIT IF WE DECIDED THAT WE’D BE STUCK LIKE THIS, BUT... GOOD.  
TC: sOuNdS gOoD tO mE, mOtHeRfUcKeRs.  
CG: GAMZEE, NO OFFENSE, BUT YOU THINK EVERYTHING SOUNDS GOOD. ANYBODY ELSE WANT TO WEIGH IN BEFORE I DECIDE THAT THIS IS WHAT WE’RE DOING?  
CT: D --> I agree with the lowb100d  
AG: Ugh, fiiiiiiiine! If you’re all so ready to finish playing, let’s just do it. I’m getting 8ored anyway!!!!!!!!  
CG: ANY DISSENTERS?  
CA: kar im not so sure about this i mean hes really glubbin strong  
CG: ANY *OTHER* DISSENTERS?  
CG: GOOD. MEMO ADJOURNED. EVERYONE MEET UP TOP IN TEN MINUTES, AND BRING YOUR SHIT-KICKING SUPPLIES.

-0-

Eridan wasn’t wrong, though. Even with the hacks that Jack Noir gave you, the Black King is easily seven building toy imps tall and he’s faster than you _and_ you can only hit him at certain times. If you try to hit him while his cape is around him, for example, the shot bounces off it and hits someone nearby instead. There are body parts flying all over the place, and the background music that pops up every time you face something that could nominally be called a boss is almost completely drowned out by the sound that arms and legs make when they pop back into existence.

You duck as pieces of Aradia float past you. She blinks back into existence to your left a few seconds later, and the flash distracts the Black King into vulnerability for a few precious seconds. Equius hurls an arrow at his left arm, and you all cheer when the arm falls off and thunks to the ground.

The fight is long and completely bloodless, much to Vriska’s dismay and nobody’s surprise. You figure out quickly that the best way to get his cape to drop is the pop-flash of someone coming back to life. Your task would be a lot easier if you could just knock each other off, but for some reason, the game won’t let you hurt other players. You can kill all the imps you want, and under certain circumstances you can attack the bosses, but when you turn your weapons on each other, shots bounce off like you’re throwing socks.

It takes some doing, but you eventually get the hang of bouncing your sickle off of the King and slamming it into your friends. They fly apart and float away before popping back into existence, and each time, the sound and light show makes the King’s cape drop. Equius keeps throwing arrows, and the King drops piece by piece until there’s just one heart left floating above him.

“His head,” you shout. “Equius, knock his head off with the next one.”

Equius nods grimly and gets an arrow ready as Nepeta steps into the spot you’ve deemed sickle-appropriate. You take aim carefully and throw; the sickle bounces perfectly, and Nepeta flashes back into being beside you. Equius throws the arrow when the last heart blinks from silver to red, and the King’s head topples to the ground.

You all stare at it for a minute.

“That was, ah, kind of lame,” Tavros says. “I was expecting more, um, fanfare.”

“Tell me about it!” Vriska exclaims. “I mean, I thought there would be-”

“Grape jelly,” Terezi says suddenly, and you all turn to look at her. She has her head tilted back and her tongue out; after a moment she rolls it back and nods. “Definitely grape jelly.”

“More words, Terezi,” you demand. She just points behind you to-

Oh. The giant purple SGRUB logo, this time with a nice door built into the bottom corner.

“That door must lead out of the game,” Kanaya says, turning. “We’ve done it. We’ve won.”

“Of course we fucking did it,” you say, irritated. “Let’s go, out out out, everyone line up and-”

A demon crashes through the house, laughing, and you all stare in mute horror as your exit breaks apart like so many imps.

“Goddammit,” Eridan wails when the dust settles. “I was really lookin' forward to brushin' my hair.”

-0-

You watch as the new players start their session. You hop around in their timeline, trolling them until you hate them a little less, until you start to maybe understand what the weird human emotion of friendship is all about. You talk and talk and talk to them, to their weird pink faces and weirder lack of horns, and then their game goes to hell, too.

-0-

The humans do everything wrong. You do mean everything, too; the John one tries to skip the game and head straight for his denizen and only escapes through the miracle of the Dave human’s Time Suit, and the Rose one does her best to figure out what the rules are so she can actively break them. At least the Jade one listens, for the most part.

You watch as they dig themselves more and more into the ground, helpless to do anything except rant and beg and rant some more. Jade comes up with a plan that might break the stalemate they’re in, might give them a chance to reach the end of the game, and you watch as Dave and Rose fly away, maybe to change things and maybe to slip through one of the cracks Rose made, one where they might actually die in a way that won’t let them come back.

As it turns out, they fall through a different sort of crack entirely. You watch as they manage to die and come back in a way that you hadn’t figured out how to do, had only sort of known was possible. Dave and Rose slip into your game in a move that you actively thought _wasn’t_ possible, and John and Jade sail away on a ship through the Void.

You have no fucking idea anymore. None at all.

-0-

The one thing that you like about being a plastic building toy is that there’s no real difference in size between you and your friends. As actual trolls, you were the shortest; Gamzee towered over everyone, sure, but he made you look twice as small when you and he were curled up together. Now, though, you’re all the same size, the standard plastic building toy height and width. The only variation is in your horns.

The humans are different. First, they don’t have any horns, which is something you will never find normal, no matter that the humans think you’re just as strange for having them. Second, their skin is paler than anything you’ve ever seen. Dave makes stupid jokes about ghosts and vampires and other dumb human shit that makes no sense at all.

Third, though, is that they’re _tiny_.

From watching them throughout their timeline, you had expected them to be normal-sized. After all, they hadn’t looked weird against their hives, or their grown human lusii, or any of their other surroundings. You’re now pretty sure that it’s just that everything in their world was half the size it should be, because when you stand beside Rose and Dave, they barely come up to your shoulder.

“It’s bullshit,” Dave grumbles. “I’m a fuck of a lot taller than Rose is outside of this shitty game. Probably taller than you are, too.”

“How tall are you normally?” Rose asks, turning to you. You shrug.

“Tall,” you offer. “I mean, Equius and Gamzee are tall-tall, but I was still…”

“Tall,” Dave says, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, got it.”

“Don’t be upset, Strider,” you tell him. “Being pocket-sized isn’t so bad.”

Somehow, he doesn’t seem mollified.

-0-

Rose, you have found, has the habit of telling you shit that you already know. It’s really fucking irritating, but you doubt she sees it that way.

“What do you mean, _he’s already here,_ ” you demand. “And don’t just repeat yourself, Lalonde, I’m onto you.”

She raises an eyebrow (a sweep and a half in this fucking game, surrounded by eleven fellow trolls and two pink humans, and you’re still not over the plastic faces moving) and smirks at you. “I’m sorry, Karkat. I’ll go again, and use smaller words.”

“Fuck you,” you groan. You throw the book you’re holding at her head. As always, it bounces harmlessly to the floor. “You’re literally the least helpful being, troll, human, or otherwise. Harley’s fucking frogs were more useful than you.”

“What I mean,” she says in that patient tone that you’ve learned to hate, “is that our attempts to prevent the end of the game have failed. In fact, they probably failed far before we thought to implement them. The end of the game is already here.”

“Seer of Light, my ass,” you mutter. “And I thought _Sollux_ was bad with the doom shit.”

Rose shakes her head. “You’re not listening, Karkat. I said the end is here; I didn’t say we had to submit to it quietly.”

Your ears perk out; you can’t help it. You build a chair and sit at the table with Rose. “Okay, Lalonde, your mystical bullshit has drawn me in. Tell me more.”

-0-

“I don’t know about this, Kar,” Eridan says, rotating his hands nervously. It’s really bizarre to watch; apparently, Eridan had had the habit of rolling his wrists before the game. Now that he’s made out of plastic, the best approximation he can make is to literally make his hands spin in their sockets. It was really unnerving at first, but sadly, you’ve gotten used to it.

“Good thing you’re not the leader, then,” you reply, shrugging your shoulders. “Look, I’ve had Sollux run everything through his computer. This is our best shot.”

“By a lot,” Sollux adds. “It’s not that there’s no way we’ll make it if we use another plan, but we’re much less likely to die horribly in a fire if we do it this way.”

“I do not want to die in a fire,” Kanaya volunteers. “It seems a very unpleasant way to go.”

“Can we actually die in a fire, though?” Aradia asks, leaning forward and frowning thoughtfully. “I mean, the only things that stay dead in the game are the bad guys. We always pop right back up.”

“You’re made out of plastic now,” you remind her. “Plastic melts in a fire. You keep coming back, you'll keep melting. Anyway,” you say, ignoring the horrified-yet-fascinated look on her face, “it’s not literal fire. Well, in most of the plans. Which doesn’t matter, because there’s only one plan we’re using, and there’s hardly any fire involved in that one at all.”

“You’re really not convincing anyone of anything,” Dave observes. You wave your hand at him in the universal sign for “fuck off, Strider” and really, really miss your middle finger.

“Look,” you say. “The plan has been decided. This is the plan, the plan is this, get used to the fucking plan.”

“Your plans suck,” Vriska says.

You flip her off, too. You cannot get your middle finger back soon enough.

-0-

“What the bleeding fuck,” not-Egbert says, just as actual Egbert yells “Karkat!” and runs at you. He, too, is shorter than you are, but it somehow doesn’t prevent him from grabbing you with his stubby arms and twirling you around in the air.

Actually _in the air_ , too; your feet hover around Gamzee’s head as you spin. He's not wearing a Flight Suit, and you stopped giving a fuck about how the game works a long time ago, but you're starting to wonder again. You smack John on the head and he laughs and squeezes you so hard your joints make plasticky sounds of protest. “It’s so good to finally meet you!”

“Put me the fuck down,” you yell. “Damn you and your idiocy, Egbert. Ground. Now.”

He laughs again but listens, dropping back to the ground and turning away immediately. He grabs Vriska and pulls a similar move, and you watch as he repeats himself with every troll present. He spins Rose around much like he did with you, but he runs straight into Dave and knocks him to the ground. They roll over and over, head over feet, until they stop in a tangled pile of cape and hood and limbs everywhere.

They’re both laughing like idiots.

You are all doomed.

-0-

Not-Egbert’s name is Jake, and not-Harley’s name is Jane. Dave and Rose both have clones, too, and honestly, humans are the weirdest things you’ve ever encountered.

On the upside, though, Other Strider and Other Lalonde nod when you explain your plan. They convince not-Egbert and not-Harley to go along with it, and suddenly you have an army.

It’s everything you dreamed of when you were five sweeps old. Now that you have it, though, you feel sick to your stomach. You aren’t sure if it’s nerves or the crushing inevitability of your defeat or something else entirely, but you have the feeling it might be a combination of all of those things.

“Stop freaking out, fearless leader,” Dave mutters at you from the side of his mouth. “If you don’t think we can do it, nobody else is gonna think so, either.”

It’s a lie and you both know it; nobody actually thinks of you as the leader of the team. It does make you take a deep breath and calm yourself the fuck down, though, so you’ll take it.

“Got it,” you say after a minute, and he nods and walks away. He heads for Other Strider and strikes up a conversation, but he glances over at you and gives you a thumbs-up before walking away with him.

You scowl and awkwardly cross your arms over your chest and very, very adamantly don’t admit that you feel better.

-0-

The demon that destroyed your game is a glitched-up version of Jack Noir that the humans are calling Angry Bec; his boss is called Lord English. Because life hates you, the final fight forces you to face both of them at the same time.

“Time and Space,” you say as calmly as you can, grabbing your sickle and moving into your approximation of a fighting stance. “Tell me you’re ready.”

“We’re ready, Karkat,” Aradia says. Jade shoots you a cheery smile and a thumbs-up, and you turn to Dave and Kanaya.

“Chill as fuck,” Dave reports, nodding at you. “Distract their asses so we can beat the shit out of them.”

“On it,” you say. You take a deep breath, nod to Vriska, and watch as she tosses her dice. A cloud of blue insects buzzes in from the north before descending on Angry Bec and Lord English.

The plan is simple enough. You’re going with the same strategy that let you defeat the Black King, but you’re hoping to do it more efficiently this time around. The Time and Space players can work together to get Angry Bec and Lord English into the best positions, and then the attack teams will, well, _attack_ while your opponents’ guards are down. The rest of you are acting as distractions while the placement teams and attack teams do their thing.

You see Kanaya grab at the air and pull, and then watch as Angry Bec stumbles towards the first attack point. He blinks and turns, looking at Kanaya. She tugs once more at the air before nodding to Dave, who summons two circles out of pretty much nowhere and slams his hands down on them. Angry Bec freezes in place, and Other Strider runs in and slashes a line across his chest.

A Heart Meter appears above Angry Bec’s head. It flashes once, and one of the hearts goes out. Fifteen left to go.

Angry Bec shakes its head a moment later, and you turn to Aradia and Jade. “Your turn! Go go go!”

They start the process with Lord English, and you watch until Equius chucks an arrow through his forearm. His first heart blinks out as well, and you look back to Dave and Kanaya.

It’s going to be a long fight.

-0-

Angry Bec goes down first in a pile of green-black limbs and indignant howling sounds. Lord English follows a few hits later, the swirling spots on his cheeks going dim before fading out completely.

You all watch as he crumples, plastic building blocks falling off and skittering away from his body. You stare as three tiny birds appear, flying in circles around his head and screeching happily.

“Oh my _glub_ ,” Feferi says, “we had better be done with this _glubbing game_.”

-0-

Stepping through the door triggers an immediate reaction. It doesn’t feel like anything, not really, but all of a sudden you can bend your fingers, feel your claws, reach the tips of your horns with your hands. You breathe a sigh of relief and flex your fingers just because you can.

There’s a laugh from behind you, and when you turn, you realize that Dave is, actually, taller than you are. He smirks down at you, tipping his head so his sunglasses slide down his nose, and you scowl back up at him.

“I hate you,” you tell him, extending your newly-returned middle finger and performing the most glorious flip-off in the history of humankind and trollkind combined. “I really, really hate you.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Vantas,” he says, laughing and sliding his sunglasses back into place with his spindly human fingers. He still doesn’t have horns like this, and it’s still one of the weirdest things you’ve ever seen.

“Whatever,” you mutter, turning and looking out at the new world you’ll be sharing with humankind. It’s blue and gray and green, the different colors meshing together as you watch the world coalesce from a dream bubble above the surface. “So what are we calling this place?”

“I’m thinking Legoland,” Dave says, looking down at the planet. John groans from the other side of the bubble.

“You are terrible,” he calls, but he’s smiling. You roll your eyes.

“We can use it as a working title until we think of something better,” you decide. “Which had better be soon, because Legoland is a fucking ridiculous name for a planet.”

Dave grins and sticks his hands in his pockets, staring down at the planet as you slowly descend. “So says our fearless leader and so shall it be, right?”

“You’d better fucking believe it,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest and staring down alongside him. “Welcome to Legoland.”


End file.
